Reading List April/May 2022 (Patreon)

We're back on schedule with these folks (which is to say, I desperately scramble on the last day of the month to somehow fit this in between videos). Enjoy a fresh reading list, complete with the last of the Elden Ring takes (probably) and the first of the AAA developer unions!

Second Opinions

Steam Breakout V Rising Is A Stellar Survival RPG by Sisi Jiang: Jiang focused on V Rising’s earliest few hours when you’re still trying to cobble together some sense of basic subsistence and how it stands in stark contrast with the usual presentation of vampires as supernatural demigods.

Behind the Japes and Jokes That Power Xalavier Nelson Jr.’s Games by Bryant Francis: While it’s been a while since I’ve covered one, Xalavier Nelson Jr.’s titles have been regular facets of the quarterly wrapup videos. Francis interviewed him on everything from how he designs games to how his faith influences what he makes.

FromSoft Difficulty: One Last Time With Feeling

I swear this will be the last of the Elden Ring takes. But one more time, we’ve got some great ones looking not just at Elden Ring, but FromSoft’s catalog as a whole, all of which focused on their approach to difficulty and none of which are just a simple rehash of the easy mode debate. Instead, these games talk about internal balance, psychology, and how you, too, can find your own way to enjoy these games without bashing yourself repeatedly against a brick wall of difficulty.

On Balance by Nathan Brown: Brown discusses Elden Ring, the game’s crushingly difficult endgame, and how when players say they want something from a game, developers often have to read between the lines to give them what they really want.

Why We Love Hard Games — The Science Behind The Urge To ‘Git Gud’ by Ed Smith: Smith explored the psychology behind why we love hard as nails games that demand we fail repeatedly before overcoming them.

I Beat the Dark Souls Trilogy and All I Made Was This Lousy Video Essay by Noah Caldwell-Gervais: As usual, NCG’s titanic analysis essays are fully comprehensive looks at their subject matter, but time and time again, his Dark Souls video returns to a core argument: that there is, in fact, no need to “git gud” and that the game gives you all the tools to fully enjoy its universe at any skill level, even his self-professed weak one, if you simply decide to use them.

Why I Left the Lands Between to Return to Yharnam by Dia Lacina: Lacina found themselves ditching Elden Ring to go back to Bloodborne, a FromSoft title they’d absolutely sworn off, and found that the very frictions that drove them off the first time were what compelled them to stay the second.

Business Matters

In what is an increasingly permanent fixture of the reading list, we talk a little bit about the business side of the video game industry. For once, the big news this month is happy news: Raven Software’s QA department has successfully unionized after massive layoffs, union busting attempts, and months of being in the spotlight as one of the most public unionization attempts in the industry.

Raven Software Employees Win Union Election by Shannon Liao: In a landmark event, Raven Software’s QA testers have officially voted to form a union. While usually I focus on thinkpieces and deep looks and not just delivering the news, this is a big enough deal that you should be paying attention to it. Unionization has been a hot button issue that’s produced hundreds of thinkpieces, many of which have shown up here, and this is a landmark event in that discussion that will hopefully reverberate both through the deeply troubled workplace at Activision Blizzard and the video game industry at large.

Why BioWare Contractors in Canada Are Trying to Unionize by Owen S. Good: And just as soon as a studio officially unionized, another, Keywords Studios, has officially begun the process to form another one. Good got a chance to interview them about why.

Inside the Growing Discontent Behind Nintendo’s Fun Facade by Kat Bailey: If you need more evidence to feel the above announcement about Raven matters, just read the latest op ed on awful. Just about every major company in the industry has gotten this treatment at this point, and this time, it’s Nintendo of America who has recently been in the news for its treatment of temp staff leading to a feeling of there being two classes of employees.

COVID-19 Taught the Games Industry to Be Better by Natalie Clayton: Clayton interviewed several studios, most notably Techland (Dying Light 2) and Respawn Entertainment (Apex Legends) about the studios’ shift to remote work during COVID.

Everything Else

Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files is a Must-Play by Writing on Games: Noted Judgment/Yakuza fan Writing on Games did a video on the series latest, a DLC that gives one of Judgment’s secondary characters the spotlight, and did a breakdown of what makes its protagonist, Masaharu Kaito, such a standout character. Bonus points: the DLC tells an entire Yakuza-class story in a mere seven hours!

What Happened to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Video Game? By MinnMax: MinnMax’s Ben Hanson documented the winding journey of yet another Kickstarter project that made a big payday and slowly disappeared over the next few years, Space Odyssey, which was launched on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s (and many others’) star power., and used that story as a jumping off point to talk about the risks of blindly fawning over celebrities.

The Animation of Final Fantasy III by New Frame Plus: Continuing his series analyzing the animation of every Final Fantasy game, Dan over at New Frame Plus has made it all the way to FFIII. Continually throughout this series, I’ve been impressed about just how much Dan finds to talk about in the early FF games which, to my layman’s eye, have fairly rudimentary and simple animation. This time around, Dan’s story is one of scope creep, discussing the challenges the game’s animators had to rise to in order to animate the game’s ballooning job system and still find ways to incorporate little additions like improved hit animations.

The Greatness of ‘Norco’ Is Found in the Tenacious Weirdos Who Live There by Cameron Kunzelman: Norco has been hailed as a spiritual followup to both Kentucky Route Zero and Disco Elysium, continuing their recent tradition of melancholy, nuanced storytelling. Kunzelman reviewed the game under this lens and found it worthy of the comparison, citing its characters and science fiction worldbuilding.

The Making of Among Us by Noclip: Noclip interviewed the developers behind Among Us, talking not just about the game’s development and rise to prominence, but also how they maintained the game over time between spikes of popularity and even almost moved on to developing different games multiple times.

I’m Jealous of Warhammer by Raycevick: Raycevick used the Warhammer franchise as a jumping off point to talk about different approaches to developing an IP’s universe between Warhammer’s approach to give anyone with an idea and half a budget a crack at it or only reserving the universe for a handful of massive tentpole releases often separated by years of nothing.

Why Does Metal Gear Rising Keep Getting More Popular? by Jacob Geller: Geller took some time to gush about one of their favorite games, covering everything from the gameplay to the way it handles its narrative to its absolute bonkers meme status.

Inside the 40 Year-Long Dungeons & Dragons Game by WIRED: As it says on the tin, Wired interviewed Robert Wardaugh about his D&D game that’s been running for 40 years and has inspired him to paint thousands of miniatures and build entire terrain tables that fill his house. It’s a truly interesting glimpse at how a hobby can define one’s life.

Overwatch 2 Needs to Pull Its Story Out of the Past by Natalie Clayton: As we wind up to Overwatch 2, Clayton highlighted a common woe the series has wrestled with from its inception: that the series has developed an all-star cast of characters and done a ton of narrative footwork building them up…and then spent years doing nothing with them.

I Love it Anyway: Dragon Star Varnir by Red Angel: Red Angel continued their series covering flawed yet compelling games, discussing their strengths and weaknesses. This time, they talked about Dragon Star Varnir, an anime JRPG with a pretty interesting and complicated-looking combat and a classic narrative with witches, dragons, and a corrupt church.

When Should A Game End? by Razbuten: Razbuten spent April thinking about end credits, or more precisely, when the credit roll should happen. How much content do you hide behind one? Should it only be optional bonus stuff, or should it include critical content?

Ubisoft Gave 50 Devs Exclusive NFTs And One Person’s Already Sold Theirs by Patrick Klepek: While most people have already forgotten Ubisoft’s weird NFT bid, Waypoint’s been documenting the story since day one, leading to a fascinating case study following how these things are actually being used and the thought processes espoused by the people that still care about them.

Unraveling The Meaning of Tunic’s Mysterious Language by Khee Hoon Chan: Chan talked with the developer of Tunic’s mysterious runic language, Andrew Shouldice, about how he developed an entirely new language and the community’s efforts to translate it back to english.

DreadXP Are Giving Devs the Creative Freedom to Make Weird, Surprising, Lovely Horror Games by Rebecca Jones: Jones interviewed indie publisher DreadXP, one of a few groups currently churning out anthologies of short form horror video games, and discussed how the publisher got started in a COVID-era game jam and has grown from there.